


I need to know now, can you love me again?

by fuscience



Series: five times i've loved you [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Drabbley, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuscience/pseuds/fuscience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Oliver breaks a promise and the one time he doesn’t need to make one at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I need to know now, can you love me again?

**Author's Note:**

> This ones a little light on the Olicity, but it’s definitely there. This was my first attempt at writing again and I didn’t like it enough for it be the first thing to post, but the response to the first fic was so overwhelming that I just decided to clean this a little bit and throw it onto AO3 with my eyes closed and fingers crossed. It’s pretty similar to the first and I promise the next one is lightyears better. I think I’m improving the more I write. I hope?

I.

 

Laurel stares him down hard. Holding a tabloid magazine he knows contains a picture of him and the two girls he brought home last night. Ollie loves Laurel. This he knows. Oliver loves Laurel in a way he has never, and will never be able to describe to anyone. It is an epic kind of love that he is sure contains a happy ending. But Oliver has not learned restraint yet, or trust, or even the base meaning of commitment (evidence:  universities he’s dropped out of). What Oliver does know is that expectations and fear go hand in hand. He fears people’s expectations of him. But Oliver loves Laurel in an always kind of way and so he leans in and whispers what she wants to hear and a part of him believes he’s telling the truth.

“Promise?” she asks.

“I promise.” He wraps Laurel up, cradling her in his arms.

Laurel introduces him to her sister two days later. The Queen’s Gambit leaves port five days after that.

 

II.

 

The island is called purgatory, but Ollie knows it’s hell. He makes so many promises while he is here and he can’t remember most of them. But Oliver is the only one who returns home, so it’s safe to say he probably broke them all.

 

III.

 

The list is what keeps Oliver alive when he returns. He has lost his father, his sanity, but he has purpose. Crossing off each name makes him feel like he’s put a piece of him back into place and slowly, but surely, he will become complete again. His father said he had failed this city but all Oliver can think about, all he can see in that moment, is the slow squeeze of the trigger, the loud boom and the blood spilling out from his father’s head.  Oliver drifts for days with his father’s body lying next to him and his father’s words echoing in his head.  At the time, Oliver is irrationally angry, overwhelmed with rage at his father - leaving him alone, rotting there and making him watch. He damns him to hell a thousand times before arriving in purgatory.

With his return to Starling, Oliver finds himself split between two lives, the man he is and the man everyone expects him to be.

Diggle sums it up, “They remember you, but they don’t know you. They’re still holding on to this ghost and you don’t talk Oliver. Coming back from hell is a lot like not coming back at all, and you’re fighting to be this person who you just aren’t anymore. They think you’ve come back but you’re still stuck on that island.”

Felicity makes him smile, “They love you Oliver.” She stares at the computer screen, eyes not even glancing at him, fingers flying across the keyboard in some complicated code far beyond his level, “You’re a good man and you’ve done nothing that would change that.”

Tommy tells the truth though, this is why they are - were - best friends. They understand each other without words. Tommy tells him he’s a murderer, questioning him with his last breath and Oliver can’t help but lie and knows it should have been him because Tommy has always been the better of the two. _Always._

When they drag him back from the island for the second time, Felicity whispers _there’s another way_

Oliver remembers his father, the bright red blood and the pink and grey tinted brain matter contrasting with the bright yellow of the life raft, begging him in a broken, defeated voice. He remembers Tommy, buried under burning wood and rubble too heavy for Oliver to lift, choking out _did you kill him?_ before dying.

He hopes to god that his father will forgive him, because he lets his eyes drift up toward Felicity, who looks at him like he’s the hero, and he feels whole.

_“A good friend told me, there’s another way.”_

 

IV.

 

Thea looks at him like he has lost his mind. Oliver would like to tell her differently, but he knows sanity left him long ago, although not for the reasons running through Thea’s head. Felicity has been taken, there is nothing more he can do for his mother. This is a sane decision. Oliver always feels most in control with his hood up.

He slips his phone into his back pocket and walks away with a quick excuse of work, leaving Thea staring at his back.

Oliver feels the ground ripped out from under him when the Count holds her neck up to the needles. Fear. It has been a while since it has overwhelmed him. Fear and pain have been his companions since the Island. They have walked by his side like friends and sometimes pushed him forward like brothers in arms but they haven’t held him back in a long time.

He drops the arrow and feels the world tip on its side, focused on those needles scraping her skin, caressing it, lovingly leading her to death’s arms. Three arrows in the Count’s chest and he feels the control return, feels the fear reign itself back to his side. It feels good.

The Count is dead and he thinks. _Tommy Tommy Tommy_. But then _Felicity Felicity Felicity_

Oliver’s not sure Tommy would forgive him for breaking his promise. For killing again. But he knows he will never forgive himself if Felicity dies tonight.

He cradles her face and traces the two red welts rising slowly to the surface.

 _“I’m sorry.”_ She whispers later.

Oliver has already forgiven himself for this death. For this one, he cannot find any regret.

_“He had you and he was going to hurt you. There was no choice to make.”_

  


V.

 

 _“Promise me.”_ She looks at him like he is the only one in the room and he focuses in on her words, grounding him in the impossibilities. Oliver can only look away and walk past. He can feel her body tense, feel her breath leave and its like the oxygen has disappeared. He often feels like that when she walks into the room. 

He cannot lie to her. Oliver is a good liar, a skilled one at this point in time, but Felicity is a rock he holds onto, a person who he no longer has to tell lies. He was never very good at lying to her anyway.

\----------------

When he returns, she folds him into her, wraps her arms around him. He allows his free arm to sweep up immediately into the embrace, lets himself fall into it. They can feel each others heartbeats, pounding against each other in a synchronized rhythm and it’s like they can both finally let go of the breath they’ve been holding. She finds his eyes, calm and strong, and her hands grip his arms, confirming he’s real, that he came back.

He allows himself to relax for a moment, the war inside calming for that single moment, and Oliver thinks to himself.

 

_This is what coming home feels like._

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I’ve got one more typed up and completed that I'll post tomorrow. it’s much better, much longer, and much fluffier than this one.


End file.
